Many mobile computing devices, including smart phones, tablet PCs and PDAs, have a screen which covers most, if not all, of the front surface of the device. The larger screen makes it easier to present information to the user but this leaves little or no room for user input buttons, such as a numeric or alphanumeric keypad or for dedicated buttons for particular tasks. One solution to this is for the screen to be touch sensitive and for a portion of the touch sensitive screen to be used for soft buttons (e.g. to provide the numeric or alphanumeric keypad). However, the area which is used for touch input reduces the overall area which is available for information presentation and also, the user may obscure a portion of the display whilst pressing the soft buttons.
The embodiments described below are not limited to implementations which solve any or all of the disadvantages of known user input means.